News

Nordisk Sikkerhet has submitted an application for a project to install a radiological ​and nuclear material monitoring system in northwest Russia near the border with Norway. This system will monitor the movement of people and vehicles to and from the city of Murmansk, and will be a continuation of a program funded by the Russian government to combat the illicit movement of nuclear and radiological material in the region.

Murmansk and the surrounding areas has one of the highest concentrations of nuclear and radiological material and installations in Russia. Numerous civil, military, and industrial sites contain nuclear/radioactive material or waste. While some sites are equipped with modern security systems which allow them to monitor any illicit movement of radioactive and nuclear material, a number of sites still find their security systems not fully sufficient.

As a result, radioactive and nuclear material has been illicitly moved on numerous occasions (such as the 2005 discovery of orphan source Sr-90 material and the 2009 illegal movement of Cf-252, etc.). These cases underline the serious and real threat of radiological materials being illicitly moved within and from the region.

Following a series of meeting in January, the proposed project has been prepared in cooperation with the Committee for the Maintenance of Public Safety of the Murmansk Region and the end user of the project, the State Regional Public Institution “Department for Civil Defense, Public Protection against Emergency Situations and Fire Safety of the Murmansk Region”, which is directly subordinate to the Committee.​This project fits into the geographical area of the Norwegian government Action Plan, which covers projects and activities in northwest Russia and in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. The proposed project fits into one of seven focus areas of the Norwegian Government Action Plan, namely: non-proliferation and physical protection. If supported by the Norwegian government, the project is proposed to be implemented in 2016-2017.